Suleima van der Westhuizen dismissed

Drewan Baird. Oudtshoorn. 6 September 2013. 04h00. Two separate reliable sources confirmed, on condition of anonymity, that the wife of Eden DA Executive Mayor Wessie van der Westhuizen was found guilty by an internal disciplinary committee earlier this week and dismissed by George Municipality.

On 10 June 2013, O!O reported the events that led to the disciplinary hearing.

At the time O!O suggested that Wessie van der Westhuizen appeared, by all accounts, to have lost it.

Here’s the facts again:

On June 4, in an apparent attempt to protect his wife, Suleima, from a municipal disciplinary threat, Wessie van der Westhuizen acted in ways not ordinarily expected from a mayor, and certainly, if one can trust to the undertakings of Helen Zille and her cronies, from a DA mayor.

Earlier that day a grievance hearing relating to electronic accounts payments (EAP) found that the EAP policy should be revisited and that EAP files should for the time being be confidential with no access by third parties. The hearing was chaired by Director Corporate Services Dr Eddie Rankwana, and attended by the wife of Eden Executive Mayor Wessie van der Westhuizen, Suleima; Mr John Mcanjana (SAMWU Chair); Ms Illana Gouws and George Municipality Labour Relations Officer Mr Denver Rennie.

The exact relevance to the events following on this hearing is not clear at this time, but O!O does know that Rennie was called to the Speaker’s office where Speaker Mercia Draghoender was in conference with Rankwana; senior manager and former acting director Siphiwo James; and one Mr Goeda, an elderly employee of the George Municipality, who was being assisted by Suleima with the finalisation of his Western Cape Local Government Organisation (WECLOGO) death benefit claim for his deceased wife.

Goeda alleged that Suleima opened an Absa account for the payment of the benefits but retained the bank card in flagrant disregard of relevant municipal practice.

Based on this claim Rankwana obtained written permission from Goeda to peruse his personal file and instructed Rennie to retrieve the file from Suleima van der Westhuizen.

And then the wheels came off.

Rennie read the authorization letter to Suleima and demanded the Goeda file be retrieved in his presence to ensure that nothing was removed.

Suleima demanded to consult her union representative, Mcanjana, and locked her office door.

Rennie cautioned Suleima not to enter her office in his absence.

Suleima proceeded to call her husband, Wessie, from the nearby kitchenette telephone.

Speaking loudly, Suleima was heard telling Wessie that she intended to call adv Shaheed Patel, a legal consultant serving various Eden municipalities and a known family friend of the Van der Westhuizens, as well as a confidant of Wessie.

Rennie asked Suleima whether she wanted to remove personal belongings from her office and stood by as she proceeded.

Both Wessie and Suleima shouted at Rennie to leave as they “could not stand the sight of him”.

At this stage Rennie squared up to all three Van der Westhuizens, Gouws, and one Nozuko Williams, and he retreated to a position in the passage.

From his new vantage point Rennie observed Williams assisting Suleima to load files into black bags. He warned Williams that her behaviour may make her complicit in the unauthorised removal of council files.

Williams first heeded the warning, but then returned to help Suleima screaming and swearing that she was only helping with Suleima’s personal belongings.

Rennie ordered Williams out of the office.

Rennie took up his position in the passage again and noted a basket with files bearing familiar ‘sign here tags’ identifying them as council documents. He pointed at the files and warned that official documents were being removed.

They finally left the building with Wessie saying that the local government days of Rennie, Theo Roodman, Rankwana and Louw were numbered and that Draghoender would “pay for interfering in the administration of the council”.

Another conspiracy against the first family of Eden!?

Wessie also claims that a conspiratorial cabal – including Eden Speaker Doris Nayler and the Mayco, and municipal manager Godfrey Louw – is responsible for his disciplinary woes in Eden.

This is not funny, Its ridiculous! How can we let this type of behavior continue? Worst of all is that we are paying for the pleasure. there has to be another way, perhaps a shadow municipality of sorts.